The 3 steps to build a cult…

Today's episode is part 2 of a 3 part series of Russell speaking at a $100k event where he taught about the psychology of funnels.

Here are some of the things you will hear in part 2:

• The three things you need to build a culture or a following.
• Why having a new opportunity is the most important part of building a culture.
• And what the difference is between an Opportunity Switch and an Opportunity Stack.

So listen below to find out how to build a cult following.

---Transcript---

Russell Brunson: My next book I'm working on now, it's called Expert Secrets and it's really about building a cult, to be completely honest. I don't ... Well, we call it cult-ure. If you get through my inner circle [inaudible 00:29:13 ], we have big things about, "Hey, we've got to build a cult." Sure. As I was preparing for this book, I started studying, I got super deep in to cults. I wanted to understand how they work and why they work and so I was reading all the amazing books on cult dynamics and you know, just totally geeked out on it. After looking at a whole bunch of things, I'm like, "What's the pattern?" The pattern I found for every single cult is this. Three things. Number one, every single cult has an attractive character. A charismatic leader. Whatever you want to call it, right? Typically, for most of you guys, that's you in the business. There's somebody who's like leading the march, right?

What's interesting is, I'll go through these ... This is true for negative cults and positive cults. It's the exact same for Hitler as it was for Christ. It's the exact same for Hillary as Trump. It's fascinating, you start looking at it. Every mass movement across time, follows this exact same pattern. One is the attractive character. Number two, in to bring their people in to a future cause mission. This is where we're going. This is the plan. This is what's happening. That's number two.

The thing I want to spend the most time on, because this is the key to everything, is they always offer people a new opportunity. Okay? When Christ came, what was the new opportunity he offered? He said, "Look, we've been doing a lot. Moses is doing all these kind of things. That's gone away. No longer do you have to do animal sacrifices. Now we're switching over to, you come to me with a broken heart and contrite spirit. It's different." Hitler came. World War One, Germany got all this oppression, all these kind of things and said, "Look, we're not going to try that. I'm not going to help you guys to solve this issue and pay our debts off. We're going to freaking take this thing over and we're going to get this new opportunity, new Germany. It is a new opportunity."

What most of us are doing, is we create products, we call these in our, in my world they call them urb products. Products that will make you better, smarter, happier, faster. That's the worst possible thing you could do. Okay? We also have these improvement offers. Improvement. Same thing. Improvement offers or ER offers. If you were selling an improvement offer to somebody, I'm going to help you to improve. What are the things that they have to admit before they give you money?

[inaudible 00:31:31 ]

Speaker 4: That they suck at what they're doing. For me to give you money, I have to admit that I failed. That's it, okay? Improvement offers are the worst possible things on earth and if your product's like, "Yeah, my product makes you smarter, it makes you stronger, it makes you faster, it makes you better, it makes you happier, it makes you sadder, it makes you ..." If you can tie an er to it, that's why your business sucks. To be completely honest. Okay? This is the biggest problem most people have, is that ... How many of you guys are looking and you're like, "Crap, I have an improvement offer, to help you become better,"? Right?

Russell Brunson: That's the biggest problem. People do not want to get better. Perry [Beltzer 00:32:03 ] was telling me this. He said, "2% of the world has ambition." 2% of the world wants to become better. 98% of the world do not want to become better. As soon as you position what you're selling as an improvement offer, 98% of the world just left. You've lost 98% of your market instantly. Now you're selling to 2% who actually want to become better. Way harder to do. Okay? If you want to get a mass movement and you want to build a cult share of people that give you money, it comes down to this. It's creating a new opportunity. That's what people want. Everyone wants a new opportunity.

The question comes back, how do I create a new opportunity. I was looking at all the different opportunities that we looked at. New opportunity. They are basically all new opportunities can be broken down in to one of two things. Number one, we call it opportunity switch. Number two is an opportunity stack. Most of your offers ... The good news is, typically you don't have to change your whole product, you have to change the positioning of that product. If I come to people and say, "Look, this is the current opportunity that you are living your world under. I'm not going to help you make that better, because it sucks and it's painful."

The other thing about improvement offers is, most people have been doing that their whole life and they've tried to get better, they've tried to get better, tried to get better. In their mind, they associate pain with becoming better at that thing. As soon as I offer a new opportunity, they have no idea what that means. There's no preconceived notions, there's no idea of pain It's just like, "Wow, this is a new thing." It's the reason why this did so well. I didn't say, "Hey, this is a way to lose more weight." I said, "Look, this is a whole new opportunity. No longer do you have to work out hard to get your body in the state to burn fat. You take this thing, it tastes like candy. You mix it in water, you stir it up, you drink it, and your body is in a fat burning state instantly. This is a whole new opportunity." Boom, a hundred million bucks, right?

It's all about that opportunity switching, or opportunity stacking. Some people ... I always look at this as like, an opportunity switch is like, "Hey, you're driving a Volvo. I'm going to put you in a Ferrari." I'm switching your opportunity. Here is like, "Okay, you've got a Volvo. You love it, but on the weekends you need a nice car, so I'm going to stack ... It's an opportunity stack, I'm going to sell you a Ferrari, so now you've got both of those." Then the opposite of all these is obviously the improvement offer. This is ... Do you guys know Perry Beltzer? If you want to hear how Perry explains this ... Perry was explaining, the first time I heard him talk about this was, he was talking about from like a marriage standpoint, right?

You're in your marriage, you're not happy, you've got three options. Number one, you can improve, you can go to counseling. Yay, that would be so much fun, right? So much pain, right? Number two, you get a new wife. Number three, you sleep with the secretary and you just have an opportunity, right? That's like, these are easy things for people to go to. This is pain, this is hard, this is why people do not want this. If you're structuring like this, you've got to say, "Look, let me step back. How do I change what I'm selling to this?" If I can figure out how am I taking ... What's the opportunity they're currently in, that I'm trying to move them to? If you look at the good offers, if you look at ... I was in weight loss, now I eat probiotics. This is a whole new opportunity. You didn't even understand this, but as your gut's all jacked up. This is the new opportunity. Holy crap, I don't have to run and lose weight. All these things I've tried in the past, I could try this new thing. That's the key.

How do you structure what you sell as a new opportunity? That's the key. To really understand that, is to really get clear. What are they currently doing, cause people have this desire, that's why they came to you, right? They have something they're currently doing and that, to get that need met. You're looking at, here's the need they're trying to get met through some vehicle. What's the vehicle they're currently using. I need to get them out of that vehicle, in to my vehicle that's going to help them meet that same desire. I've got to become crystal clear like, this is how they're trying to meet their desire, this is the vehicle or the option they're currently in. I'm getting them to switch out of that to this one. That's what we have to rethink through your brain, of how to structure what you're doing. Does that make sense?

You see that there's going to be an opportunity switch, like you're getting out of this vehicle, moving to this one, or "Hey, you're currently doing something that's good, I'm not going to make it better, but I'm going to stack a different opportunity on top of it. This might be, you've got a gym right now. I've got a buddy that does, he comes in to gyms and adds on a whole new [inaudible 00:36:31 ] and he says, "You already have a gym, you're already doing [inaudible 00:36:33 ], you're already doing your stuff. I'm going to come in and I'm going to stack a whole new opportunity on top of it, maybe it's a yoga studio inside your gym, or it's going be a different marketing business stack as opposed to an improvement." Okay?

I'm curious if you guys, you're looking at this within what you offer right now, how many of you guys think that what you're offering is probably an, is  How going to be an opportunity stack to your market? How many is it going to be an opportunity switch?

[inaudible 00:37:02 ]

Speaker 5: Many of you guys, it's going to be both, yes.

Russell Brunson: You know what I think that opportunity stack by doing 100k.

Speake